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Why you should print your photographs?

We live in a digital age. There’s a tendency to computerize all information, and nowadays most of the information that we have is stored on hard drives. Once upon a time there were paperback books, for example. Today the trend is that many new books come out in a format that will fit into a computer. The same goes for papers – many of them are electronic nowadays. And finally, photos. There used to be a time when you had to have photos in a physical form – there was no other way to be had. But as time went by there came up this trend to computerize everything, including the photos.

Well, despite this being practical and despite the fact that this eases up some of the work that you’d have to do if you wanted a physical copy of a photo – we’ll argue that printing your photos will have some benefits for you. Below you’ll find a couple of reasons why we believe that this is really the case.

Printing adds life to photos

The first reason on the benefits of printing a photo that we’d like to mention is the fact that you’ll become a better editor if you have a physical photography at your hands. Most people nowadays see Instagram photos from their cellphone. As you know, cellphones have small screens, and in this way a big part of the charm of a photo could easily be lost. Also, if you’re viewing the photos on a monitor, such as on your laptop, the quality of your perception of the photo that you’re seeing may suffer. This goes out especially if your monitor could use some cleaning. Chances are there will be some dust speck that will ruin parts of the photo. If you have a printed version of the photo, then you wouldn’t have to care about these issues. And you’ll have a bigger, physical photo in your hands now, meaning you can analyze in depth on some of the details that may elude you if you’re viewing the photo from your cellphone. This will make you a better editor of photos.

Related to this, you’ll become a better photographer, which is your primary goal if you wish to excel in the field of photography. Printing a photo means that you’ll have a bigger version of it, so that you can see the photo in all its glory, with the goods sides and the bad sides as well. This will help you analyze the good and bad parts, distill these differences into principles, and ingrain them in your conscious knowledge. This will dramatically improve your skill in photography.

Physical copies of photos, such as printed photos, have an ephemeral, ungraspable charm to them. It’s obvious to everyone that you’re seeing the exact same photo that you have in your hard drive, the only difference being that it’s in a physical form… but there’s still some ungraspable element that gives the printed photo some kind of a charm that the digital photo doesn’t have. Try it out for yourself, find a photo that you like on the internet, and then print it out. Then compare the two versions of the photo. Chances are, the printed version will seem somehow more real than the digital one. This is a well-documented effect, and not one to be taken lightly.

We’ve established that the photos come to life when printed… well this could be metaphorical as well as literal. In the literal sense – photos do come to life – literally. This means that they are no longer some bits of computer code, ones and zeros, but they are manifested in the physical world. So, if your hard drive should crash one day and the photos that you have had stored there become irretrievable, then you’ll always have the physical copies of the printed photos at your side. This is a smart investment of your money, as hard drives are notorious for their ability to one day fail without any warning whatsoever.

Finally, we’ll mention the fact that printing your photos is just plain fun. It can be the finishing touch of your work – after you took the photo on your digital camera, and then edited it via Photoshop on your laptop, finally, your work is done, and now you can print it out and awe at its beauty. This can make you feel fulfilled, and really happy, as many photographers can attest to this feeling.

So, there you have it. You now have some of the most important reasons as to why you should print out your photos. There are many others as well, and since the sole price that you need to pay for printing your photos is a printer, and some paper, you can consider it as a really cheap investment that will not only make you a better photographer, but it will make you just a bit happier and more fulfilled as a person.